Why Trip.com Group’s Edison Chen Says Proximity Is Power in Global Travel
Skift Take
Trip.com Group's Edison Chen has spent over a decade turning culture, events, and AI into travel demand. As a Skift IDEA Awards judge, he is looking for ideas that move beyond static bookings toward experiences travelers want to participate in, and that land deeply in a market rather than simply reaching it.
Edison Chen is Vice President at Trip.com Group, where he leads destination marketing, strategic alliances, branding, and sustainability across the company’s global footprint. Over more than a decade in the industry, he has built partnerships in entertainment, sports, and large-scale events, and pushed the company toward “experience-driven travel.”
As a Skift IDEA Awards judge, he brings that lens to every entry: a focus on ideas that turn locally-resonating, cultural moments into scalable, concrete offerings, and a focus on AI that solves real traveler friction points.
We spoke with him about the initiative he is proudest of, how culture is reshaping traveler decisions, the rise of AI agents, and the one lesson that has stayed with him.
Skift: What is one initiative or approach you are most proud of that has positively impacted your business or the traveler experience?
Chen: Trip.com Group is proud to redefine travel by moving beyond static bookings to experience-driven destination marketing. Through strategic alliances with Live Nation Entertainment and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), we transform premium events—concerts, tournaments, festivals—into primary travel drivers. By packaging exclusive event access with top-tier hospitality and transport, we create end-to-end cultural experiences that unlock significant value for destination partners… As a result, we have delivered double-digit year-on-year increases in both passenger volume and GMV, setting a new benchmark for experiential travel globally.
Skift: How are experiences, culture, and community shaping traveler decisions, and how does Trip.com Group design for that?
Chen: Our Momentum 2025 consumer report makes it stark: niche, high-intent journeys are growing at twice the rate of traditional sightseeing. 63% of our users now anchor an entire trip around an event — a concert, a Grand Prix, a fashion week.
Consider the numbers. When Milan Fashion Week took place, we saw a 611% year-over-year surge in bookings to Milan. When BLACKPINK and SEVENTEEN announced K-pop concerts in Hong Kong, premium tickets sold out within ten seconds, and peak traffic on our platform exceeded 300,000 users per second.
Why? Because people no longer want to observe culture. They want to participate in it. Others want to immerse themselves in a culture and return home with a craft, a technique, a practice. A tea ceremony in Kyoto. New recipe skills from a cooking lesson in Puglia. We call this “Skillvenirs” — the new souvenir.
We have rebuilt our architecture around inspiration-led commerce. We capture travellers at the moment of dreaming — on TikTok or YouTube — and convert that travel dream into a booking instantly… Our platform no longer just sells trips. It curates memorable moments and journeys. And in doing so, we have turned culture and community into the new currency of travel.
Skift: What has surprised you most about integrating new technology into your operation? Or where do you see the biggest opportunity for AI or tech to make a real difference — for travelers, or for your team?
Chen: What has surprised me most is not the arrival of new technology, but the sheer velocity with which artificial intelligence has moved from conversation to action.
The real opportunity lies beyond chatbots and search bars. It lies in agentification -AI that doesn’t just answer questions, but solves problems.
Nearly 60% of TripGenie interactions are now booking-related, spanning hotels, flights and attractions… Moreover, beyond conversational interaction, users also progress to compare travel options, such as TripGenie’s hotel comparison feature, which streamlines the process and reduces the number of clicks needed by 80%, and fosters higher engagement with a 45% increase in 7-day AI revisit rates.
Skift: You have overseen strategic planning, branding, and marketing across various global travel industry partners for over a decade. What is one lesson that has stayed with you?
Chen: The lesson that has stayed with me is this: reach only matters when the message resonates locally.
For years, global travel brands chased scale—more destinations, more channels, more languages. But the brands that win are not the biggest; they are the ones that go local before they go large. I have seen multi-million dollar campaigns fail because they were translated, not tailored. I have seen modest teams outperform giants because they understood a market’s cultural fabric, not just its conversion metrics.
Depth of understanding will always outrun breadth of broadcast. So stop obsessing over how far your message travels. Obsess over how deeply it lands. In travel, as in anything human, proximity is power.
Skift: What is driving the next phase of growth for your business, and how are you positioning yourself to lead in an increasingly competitive landscape?
Chen: We are moving beyond vision to execution. Our next phase is powered by three distinct pillars:
- Product: Building an experiential marketplace that integrates premium events such as Live Nation and AEG with travel, shifting value from discounts to cultural moments.
- Technology: Using AI agents like TripGenie to solve real traveller friction, not just automate conversation.
- Service: The customer is still at the heart of what we do, and we offer 24/7 multilingual support in more than 20 languages across 48 countries and regions. This is not a safety net but a predictive growth engine that consistently delivers the best travel experience worldwide.
Have an Idea Worth Recognizing?
The Skift IDEA Awards recognize the ideas moving travel forward. Chen is looking for solutions that turn cultural moments into demand, use technology to solve real traveler friction, and land deeply in the markets they serve. If that describes your work, submit your entry now.
